Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
A Good Apple Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Prepare a dish with a border of English puff-paste or cream-crust.
Dip the peeled and cored apples in water and arrange them compactly in the dish, higher in the center than at the sides.
Sprinkle the apples with 4 ounces of pounded sugar, adjusting for tartness.
Add the grated rind and strained juice of ½ lemon to enhance flavor.
If desired, after baking, attach ready-baked almond-paste leaves with a little white of egg.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,025 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the almond
The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, cream, egg):
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Almondthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Hazelnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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